It was 1968 and Chuck Foster was fresh out of high school, hiking around Europe. One morning some Frenchmen drove into his campsite, unloaded a balloon, flap inflated it and flew off with no crew, leaving their car behind. Upon his return to Massachusetts Foster located Dr. Clayton Thomas who provided Foster with his first ride and flight lesson.
“He was great,” recalls Foster, “because he explained briefly how it all worked, then had me inflate it and fly it right from moment one. It was an ultimate experience with the New England foliage spreading out below, and from that moment ballooning for me was a done deal.”
Foster was racing motorcycles at the time but he and a friend constructed a homebuilt balloon “that was not very good,” he says. “In fact I still have it somewhere and it’s still not very good!”
His next balloon was purchased from Tracy Barnes. “A couple of friends and I showed up looking for the ‘Aerodrome’ and were surprised to come upon the chicken shacks that made up Barnes’ factory,” he says. “So I explained that I wanted to buy a balloon and they explained they would be happy to take my order. So I explained I wanted to buy one now.” Fortunately someone else’s balloon had just been finished and was about to be shipped. For a few dollars more, it became Foster’s.
Back home in Dartmouth with his new blue and white balloon, Foster was approached by a local businessman wanting a ride. Foster declined, explaining he was still learning and not yet prepared to carry passengers. The businessman asked again and again, then one morning Foster found an envelope on his doorstep with $50 in it. “Along with the money in the envelope,” says Foster, “was a note saying ‘when you’re ready, I want to be your first passenger.’ So I found myself in the ride business by popular demand!”
By 1977 Foster would find himself in the ride business in a big way, as owner/operator of Balloon Aviation of Napa Valley (California). Along the way he had served a short stint as pilot for the first two of Buddy Bombard’s ballooning vacations in France, and he later worked as chief pilot for Sid Cutter’s World Balloons in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
In the earliest days in California Foster and company flew TBW 77’s, then moved to Aerostar when the Sioux Falls team “whispered” that they could supply a 140 (140,000 cubic foot) envelope. Later when Foster and friend Denny Floden decided they needed equipment like T-partition baskets and burner cross-flow valves a deal was struck that established Airborne America as Thunder & Colt’s new American distributor in Michigan. Foster would be the west coast distributor.
“There was a point where we realized we needed a couple of things and the way certifications worked, the English could make them right now because they could get them certified much faster. So Denny and I made a deal to buy a half dozen balloons because Dave Stephen (then T&C’s US representative) wanted out.” Foster eventually left T&C in the years when Per Lindstrand was ousted and the company began the hemorrhaging that would end with its being placed in receivership in late 1995 only to be purchased by long-time competitor Don Cameron.
But selling balloons was never Foster’s principal concern (though he sold 28 one year). Building a ride business was and the T-partition basket combined with his unique business philosophy would see Balloon Aviation of Napa Valley well on its way to becoming one of the largest and most successful companies of its kind.
“We were never in the balloon ride business,” says Foster. “What we never lost sight of was that we were in the luxury travel business (a philosophy Buddy Bombard may have influenced early in his career), because that is the one thing people will spend money on, recession or not.
“The t-partition basket was also a part of that focus because now you could have more people in the basket but they still had their privacy,” recalled Foster.
Foster was instrumental in the evolution of the so-called “ride business.” His company was among the first to pursue clients through corporate incentive travel. “Here you’ve got Acme Widget Corporation and they want to reward their top 100 producing salesmen. So, they give them a TV set. Well, those salesmen can talk about those TV's once but any more than that and they’re jerks. But, they can live and relive their experiences on a balloon flight, and it kept corporate incentive programs alive because it was new and it was sizzly.”
In fact, Foster’s group once staged an entire balloon race with zebra-striped officials, targets, thrown markers and all, just for the entertainment of one large corporate client. At its peak, Balloon Aviation of Napa Valley employed more than 40 people from reservationists who manned the phones live, 24-hours a day, to salespeople knocking on corporate doors selling incentive travel.
In 1995, to the surprise of some, Foster gave it all up selling his business to “retire” (though he remains involved in special projects, like the current Lindstrand/Branson RTW venture). He told Balloon Life he had always planned to retire in 1995, unquestionably a hallmark year in his life, though Foster laughingly guards the secret of his true age.
Today he still resides in Napa Valley and he still rides motorcycles. From a once burgeoning fleet of balloons he now owns a single Aerostar Aurora 54. As Foster put it, "I’ve worked more than 20 years to become a recreational pilot.”